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Portugal

Porto

Northern Portugal

Port wine and blue tiles

ScenicScenicFoodFoodArchitectureArchitectureAuthenticAuthenticRomanticRomantic

About Porto

Porto climbs the steep granite banks of the Douro where the river meets the Atlantic, a city of tiled churches, iron bridges and narrow stairways.

The Ribeira waterfront is a UNESCO site, the hall of São Bento station is lined with some twenty thousand blue tiles, and across the river in Gaia the port wine lodges open their cellars for tastings. Downstream, the river ends at the Atlantic beaches of Foz.

It's rougher and more unhurried than Lisbon, proud and very much lived in, and the Douro wine valley is a train ride upriver.

Eat a francesinha, a sandwich drowned in a beer and tomato sauce, grilled sardines in June, and finish with a glass of tawny.

Get to Porto

Round trip from Prague, any dates in November 2026.

Buses from Porto

Day trips from Porto

  • Day trip

    Braga

    ~1 h train

    Portugal's religious capital, with the country's oldest cathedral and, above the city, the Bom Jesus sanctuary at the top of a zigzag baroque staircase, a UNESCO site, with a water-powered funicular running alongside it.

  • Day trip

    Aveiro

    ~1 h train

    A town of canals and painted moliceiro boats, Art Nouveau facades and salt pans, with the striped beach houses of Costa Nova on the sand bar outside it.

  • Day trip

    Guimarães

    ~1 h 15 min train

    The 'birthplace of Portugal', where the first king was born: a hilltop castle, the palace of the dukes of Braganza and a medieval old town of granite squares, a UNESCO site.

  • Day trip

    Vale do Douro

    ~2 h train, ~1 h 30 min car

    The valley where port wine comes from, the world's oldest demarcated wine region and a UNESCO site: vineyard terraces stepped down steep slopes to the river, quintas with tastings, and a railway that follows the water to Pinhão.

  • Day trip

    Peneda-Gerês

    ~1 h 30 min car

    Portugal's only national park: granite mountains, oak forests and waterfalls with pools for swimming, wild garrano ponies and a Roman road still marked by its milestones.

About Portugal

Atlantic light and tiled facades

Surf beaches, tiled hill towns, port terraces along the Douro, and a pair of green islands out in the middle of the ocean.

Explore PortugalRegions, highlights and when to go